Sophisticated computing systems are needed to manage the operations of an airline. Airline operation computing systems exist that enable aircraft and crew planning, day-to-day operations management and reporting. In addition, airline operation computing systems exist that enable airlines to manage flight crews, equipment and passengers affected by service disruptions, such as weather or mechanical delays.
Typical airline operation systems are complex and are required to manage massive amounts of data. In addition, these systems are used in scenarios where the operations being managed can change very quickly, due to weather or mechanical delays. As such, the systems need to be easy to use, and allow decision making to be made very quickly.
Scheduling of airline operations is complicated by the number and complexity of the rules that must be considering in the scheduling. Systems exist that have rules engines and rules database that enable checking whether any rules have been violated for a scheduling change that has been made. In addition to the complex rules environment in which scheduling changes are made, further complexity arises from the fact that multiple different users may be interacting with the schedule and attempting to make schedule changes that impact other parts of an overall schedule.